For many years, the most commonly used enclosure for a tub/shower bathing facility has included a pair of sliding glass doors framed in metal. In a typical installation, an outer metal frame circumscribes the entry to the bath and is attached at the sides to the walls of the facility. The installation also includes a header spanning the entrance and a guide rail attached to the tub or shower base. The shower doors are hung at the top from the header and guided at the bottom by the rail so that they can slide back and forth in the entryway to allow entry and egress and to create a splash barrier.
There are several disadvantages with the described installation, both functional and aesthetic. First, the support structure is always present in the entryway to the bathing area, thus always at least partially blocking the entrance and restricting free access to the bathing area, a special problem when bathing a small child or when cleaning the facility. The header also adds an undesired obstruction in the entryway which must be avoided when entering or leaving the area. Moreover, the metal of the frame and all the glass-to-metal interfaces require special cleaning and maintenance. Apart from these functional constraints, the metal required for the framing, header and rail detracts from a clean and open appearance of the facility.
Various systems eliminating the shower door header have been utilized, including enclosure systems with the shower door hingedly or slidably connected to a glass panel which is in turn mounted to an adjacent wall. A problem commonly arises in that the surrounding walls to which the glass panel is to be secured are out-of-square with respect to the shower enclosure. There has previously been a support arm, attached at one end to the stationary glass panel and at the other end to the wall, which provides stability to the stationary glass panel. This support arm forms the hypotenuse of a triangle described by the support arm, the wall, and the stationary glass panel. This arm is attached to the top edge of the stationary glass panel and at an equal height to the wall. In the case of the support arm there is a restriction of free motion within the shower or bath, as the arm is an obstruction at or below head-height for many people. These previous systems, including the support arm, allow an undesirable amount of deflection of the stationary glass panel. In at least one embodiment, the support arm is composed of three pieces which are connected to each other by bolts. The support arm described can experience a pivoting action about the bolts within its structure. This pivoting can contribute to the deflection of the stationary glass panel.
Thus, it can be seen that there is a need for a bracket which can be utilized to secure a glass panel to a wall or the like and facilitate adjustment to accommodate an out-of-square configuration.